In this post, I argue that the Sticky Open Market Committee of mods set the RI qualitative expectations too high and caused a RIpression.

If you are an applied microeconomist, or from the other social sciences, I suggest skipping the formal model section to conclusions, like you do in all the papers you read anyway.

Formal Model

Let the silly behavioralists be correct.

Let the set

S = {sufficient, insufficient, removed by mods}

be the set of potential outcomes of a post. A RI is a function mapping a shitpost to an outcome; formally we have RI: shitpost -> S. This function is computed by a random, indecipherable, latent process we'll call "the mod's decision".

unlabeled posts

Note here that any unlabeled post at a time t has a latent outcome in S at a time t h for an unspecified h.

Unlabeled posts under the current system are strictly an inefficiency brought by the socialist SOMC seizing the means of RI labeling.

utility of shitposting

The outcome of a shitpost brings utility to the shitposter; formally we have U:S->R. This function is assumed to be increasing in S, that is U(sufficient) > U(insufficient) > U(removed) for any shitposter.

Moreover, let the shitposter know his assessment of the quality of his post, which is correlated with the mods' decision to delete his post or not, but not if his post is sufficient or not.

Theorem Under the current system, RIs are discouraged by the incentive structure

Proof Because the annoying behavioralists are correct, we assume the shitposter to be loss averse. Moreover, the anxiety of an unlabeled RI maps to disulity because shitposters are assumed to be risk averse as well. Therefore, the disulity of an insufficient RI is greater than the utility of a sufficient RI. Under uncertainty about the "mods decision" on a shitpost, the user will tend to stray away from the RI. QED

Informal model

People think a RI should be, like, really really good or else it's a failure and they feel bad. That scares them away from posting.

Policy recommendations

We should adjust RIspectations. That is, we should encourage lower quality RIs and the free market of ensuing discussion to correct the readership's beliefs.

As such, a post should be labeled "insufficient" only if it is badeconomics itself, but not bad enough to warrant deletion. The "Sufficient" tag should hold for RIs which are of such a high quality to permit passage over the WumboWall. The average post should be unlabeled in the long run. The snark rule should be enforced, but relaxed somewhat.

TL;DR I'm pretty sure a Universal Basic Karma of 15,000 upvotes per shitpost will solve whatever the problem is